SOME  NOTES  ON  EARLY  WOODCUT  BOOKS,  WITH 
A  CHAPTER  ON  ILLUMINATED  MANUSCRIPTS, 
BY  WILLIAM  MORRIS 


Copyright,  1902 
By  H.  M.  O'Kane 


From  Terence's  Eunuchus,  Ulm,  Conrad  Dinckmut, 

1486 


ON  THE  ARTISTIC  QUALITIES  OF  THE  WOOD-        Notes 
CUT  BOOKS  OF  ULM  AND  AUGSBURG  IN  THE        on 
FIFTEENTH  CENTURY.  Woodcut 

The  invention  of  printing  books,  and  the  use  of  wood-blocks  Books 
for  book  ornament  in  place  of  hand-painting,  though  it  be- 
longs to  the  period  of  the  degradation  of  mediaeval  art,  gave 
an  opportunity  to  the  Germans  to  regain  the  place  which 
they  had  lost  in  the  art  of  book  decoration  during  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries.  This  opportunity  they  took 
with  vigour  and  success,  and  by  means  of  it  put  forth  works 
which  showed  the  best  and  most  essential  qualities  of  their 
race.  Unhappily,  even  at  the  time  of  their  first  woodcut 
book,  the  beginning  of  the  end  was  on  them;  about  thirty 
years  afterwards  they  received  the  Renaissance  with  singu- 
lar eagerness  and  rapidity,  and  became,  from  the  artistic 
point  of  view,  a  nation  of  rhetorical  pedants.  An  exception 
must  be  made,  however,  as  to  Albert  Diirer ;  for,  though  his 
method  was  infected  by  the  Renaissance,  his  matchless  im- 
agination and  intellect  made  him  thoroughly  Gothic  in  spirit. 
Amongst  the  printing  localities  of  Germany  the  two  neigh- 
bouring cities  of  Ulm  and  Augsburg  developed  a  school  of 
woodcut  book  ornament  second  to  none  as  to  character, 
and,  I  think,  more  numerously  represented  than  any  other. 
I  am  obliged  to  link  the  two  cities,  because  the  early  school 
at  least  is  common  to  both ;  but  the  ornamented  works  pro- 
duced by  Ulm  are  but  few  compared  with  the  prolific 
birth  of  Augsburg. 

It  is  a  matter  of  course  that  the  names  of  the  artists  who 
designed  these  wood-blocks  should  not  have  been  recorded, 
any  more  than  those  of  the  numberless  illuminators  of  the 
lovely  written  books  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cen- 
turies ;  the  names  under  which  theUlm  and  Augsburg  picture- 
books  are  known  are  all  those  of  their  printers.  Of  these  by 
far  the  most  distinguished  are  the  kinsmen  (their  degree  of 
kinship  is  not  known),  GuntherZainer  of  Augsburg  and  John 
Zainer  of  Ulm.  Nearly  parallel  with  these  in  date  are  Lud- 
wig  Hohenwang  and  John  Bamler  of  Augsburg,  together 
with  Pflanzmann  of  Augsburg,  the  printer  of  the  first  illus- 

1 


Notes  trated  German  Bible.  Anthony  Sorg,  a  little  later  than  these, 

on  was  a  printer  somewhat  inferior,  rather  a  reprinter  in  fact, 

Woodcut         but  by  dint  of  reusing  the  old  blocks,  or  getting  them  recut 
Books  and  in  some  cases  redesigned,  not  always  to  their  disadvan- 

tage, produced  some  very  beautiful  books.  Schoensperger, 
who  printed  right  into  the  sixteenth  century,  used  blocks 
which  were  ruder  than  the  earlier  ones,  through  careless- 
ness, and  I  suppose  probably  because  of  the  aim  at  cheap- 
ness; his  books  tend  towards  the  chap-book  kind. 
The  earliest  of  these  picture-books  with  a  date  is  Gunther 
Zainer's  Golden  Legend,  the  first  part  of  which  was  printed 
in  1471;  but,  as  the  most  important  from  the  artistic  point 
of  view,  I  should  name:  first,  Gunther  Zainer's  Speculum 
Humanae  Salvationis  (undated  but  probably  of  1471);  sec- 
ond, John  Zainer's  Boccaccio  De  Claris  Mulieribus  (dated 
in  a  cut,  as  well  as  in  the  colophon,  1473);  third,  the  JEsop, 
printed  by  both  the  Zainers,  but  I  do  not  know  by  which 
first,  as  it  is  undated;  fourth,  Gunther  Zainer's  Spiegel  des 
Menschlichen  lebens  (undated  but  about  1475),  with  which 
must  be  taken  his  German  Belial,  the  cuts  of  which  are  un- 
doubtedly designed  by  the  same  artist,  and  cut  by  the  same 
hand,  that  cut  the  best  in  the  Spiegel  above  mentioned; 
fifth,  a  beautiful  little  book,  the  story  of  Sigismonda  and 
Guiscard,  by  Gunther  Zainer,  undated;  sixth,  Tuberinus, 
die  geschicht  von  Symon,  which  is  the  story  of  a  late  Ger- 
man Hugh  of  Lincoln,  printed  by  G.  Zainer  about  1475; 
seventh,  John  Bamler's  Das  buch  der  Natur  (1475),  with 
many  full-page  cuts  of  much  interest;  eighth,  by  the  same 
printer,  Das  buch  von  den  7  Todsiinden  und  den  7  Tugen- 
den  (1474) ;  ninth,  Bamler's  Sprenger's  Rosencranz  Bruder- 
schaft,  with  only  two  cuts,  but  those  most  remarkable. 
To  these  may  be  added  as  transitional  (in  date  at  least), 
between  the  earlier  and  the  later  school  next  to  be  men- 
tioned, two  really  characteristic  books  printed  by  Sorg: 

(a)  Der  Seusse,  a  book  of  mystical  devotion,  1482,  and 

(b)  the  Council  of  Constance,  printed  in  1483;  the  latter 
being,  as  far  as  its  cuts  are  concerned,  mainly  heraldic. 
At  Ulm,  however,  a  later  school  arose  after  a  transitional 

2 


book,  Leonard  Hoi's  splendid  Ptolemy  of  1482 ;  of  this  school 
one  printer's  name,  Conrad  Dinckmut,  includes  all  the  most 
remarkable  books:  to  wit,  Der  Seelen-wurzgarten  (1483), 
DasbuchderWeisheit(1485),theSwabianChronicle(1486), 
Terence's  Eunuchus  (in  German)  (1486).  Lastly,  John  Re- 
ger's  Descriptio  Obsidionis  Rhodiae  (1496)  worthily  closes 
the  series  of  the  Ulm  books. 

It  should  here  be  said  that,  apart  from  their  pictures,  the 
Ulm  and  Augsburg  books  are  noteworthy  for  their  border 
and  letter  decoration.  The  Ulm  printer,  John  Zainer,  in 
especial  shone  in  the  production  of  borders.  His  De  Claris 
Mulieribus  excels  all  the  other  books  of  the  school  in  this 
matter;  the  initial  S  of  both  the  Latin  and  the  German  edi- 
tions being  the  most  elaborate  and  beautiful  piece  of  its 
kind;  and,  furthermore,  the  German  edition  has  a  border 
almost  equal  to  the  S  in  beauty,  though  different  in  char- 
acter, having  the  shield  of  Scotland  supported  by  angels  in 
the  corner.  A  very  handsome  border  (or  half-border  rather), 
with  a  zany  in  the  corner,  used  frequently  in  J.  Zainer's 
books  [by  the  by,  in  Gritsch's  Quadragesimale,  1475,  this 
zany  is  changed  into  an  ordinary  citizen  by  means  of  an  in- 
genious piecing  of  the  block],  e.  g.,  in  the  1473  and  1474  edi- 
tions of  the  Rationale  of  Durandus,  and,  associated  with  an 
interesting  historiated  initial  O,  in  Alvarus,  De  planctu  Ec- 
clesise,  1474.  There  are  two  or  three  other  fine  borders, 
such  as  those  in  Steinhowel's  Biichlein  der  Ordnung,  and 
Petrarch's  Griseldis  (here  shown),  both  of  1473,  and  in 
Albertus  Magnus,  Summa  de  eucharistias  Sacramento,  1474. 
A  curious  alphabet  of  initials  made  up  of  leafage,  good, 
but  not  very  showy,  is  used  in  the  De  Claris  Mulieribus 
and  other  books.  An  alphabet  of  large  initials,  the  most 
complete  example  of  which  is  to  be  found  in  Leonard 
Hoi's  Ptolemy,  is  often  used  and  is  clearly  founded  on  the 
pen-letters,  drawn  mostly  in  red  and  blue,  in  which  the 
Dutch  'rubrishers'  excelled.  [Another  set  of  initials  founded 
on  twelfth  century  work  occurs  in  John  Zainer1 s  folio  books, 
and  has  some  likeness  to  those  used  by  Hohenwang  of 
Augsburg  in  the  Golden  Bibel  and  elsewhere,  and  perhaps 

3 


Notes 
on 

"Woodcut 
Books 


Notes  was  suggested  by  these,  as  they  are  not  very  early  (c.  1475), 

on  but  they  differ  from  Hohenwang's  in  being  generally  more 

Woodcut         or  less  shaded,  and  also  in  not  being  enclosed  in  a  square.] 
Books  This  big  alphabet  is  very  beautiful  and  seems  to  have  been 

a  good  deal  copied  by  other  German  printers,  as  it  well 
deserved  to  be.  [The  initials  of  Knoblotzer  of  Strassburg 
and  Bernard  Richel  of  Basel  may  be  mentioned.]  John 
Reger's  Caoursin  has  fine  handsome  'blooming-letters,' 
somewhat  tending  toward  the  French  style. 
In  Augsburg  Gunther  Zainer  has  some  initial  I's  of  strap- 
work  without  foliation:  they  are  finely  designed,  but  gain 
considerably  when,  as  sometimes  happens,  the  spaces  be- 
tween the  straps  are  filled  in  with  fine  pen-tracery  and  in 
yellowish  brown;  they  were  cut  early  in  Gunther's  career, 
as  one  occurs  in  the  Speculum  Humanse  Salvationis,  c.  1471, 
and  another  in  the  Calendar,  printed  1471.  These,  as  they 
always  occur  in  the  margin  and  are  long,  may  be  called 
border-pieces.  Aborder  occurring  in  Eyb,  ob  einem  manne 
tzu  nemen  ein  weib  is  drawn  very  gracefully  in  outline, 
and  is  attached,  deftly  enough,  to  a  very  good  S  of  the  pen- 
letter  type,  though  on  a  separate  block;  it  has  three  shields 
of  arms  in  it,  one  of  which  is  the  bearing  of  Augsburg. 
This  piece  is  decidedly  illuminators'  work  as  to  design. 
Gunther'sMargaritaDavidicahasaborder  (attached  toa  very 
large  P)  which  is  much  like  the  Ulm  borders  in  character. 
A  genealogical  tree  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg  prefacing 
the  Spiegel  des  Menschlichen  lebens,and  occupy  ing  a  whole 
page,  is  comparable  for  beauty  and  elaboration  to  the  S  of 
John  Zainer  above  mentioned;  on  the  whole,  for  beauty 
and  richness  of  invention  and  for  neatness  of  execution,  I 
am  inclined  to  give  it  the  first  place  amongst  all  the  deco- 
rative pieces  of  the  German  printers. 
Gunther  Zainer 's  German  Bible  of  c.  1474  has  a  full  set  of 
pictured  letters,  one  to  every  book,  of  very  remarkable 
merit:  the  foliated  forms  which  make  the  letters  and  en- 
close the  figures  being  bold,  inventive,  and  very  well  drawn. 
I  note  that  these  excellent  designs  have  received  much  less 
attention  than  they  deserve. 
4 


In  almost  all  but  the  earliest  of  Gunther's  books  a  hand- 
some set  of  initials  are  used,  a  good  deal  like  the  above- 
mentioned  Ulm  initials,  but  with  the  foliations  blunter,  and 
blended  with  less  of  geometrical  forms:  the  pen  origin  of 
these  is  also  very  marked. 

Ludwig  Hohenwang,  who  printed  at  Augsburg  in  the  sev- 
enties, uses  a  noteworthy  set  of  initials,  alluded  to  above, 
that  would  seem  to  have  been  drawn  by  the  designer  with 
a  twelfth  century  MS.  before  him,  though,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  the  fifteenth  century  betrays  itself  in  certain  details, 
chiefly  in  the  sharp  foliations  at  the  ends  of  the  scrolls, 
etc.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  beautiful  design  in  these  let- 
ters; but  the  square  border  round  them,  while  revealing 
their  origin  from  illuminators'  work,  leaves  over-large 
whites  in  the  backgrounds,  which  call  out  for  the  comple- 
tion that  the  illuminator's  colour  would  have  given  them. 
Bamler  and  the  later  printer  Sorg  do  not  use  so  much  or- 
nament as  Gunther  Zainer;  their  initials  are  less  rich  both 
in  line  and  design  than  Gunther's,  and  Sorg's  especially 
have  a  look  of  having  run  down  from  the  earlier  ones:  in 
his  Seusse,  however,  there  are  some  beautiful  figured  ini- 
tials designed  on  somewhat  the  same  plan  as  those  of 
Gunther  Zainer's  Bible. 

Now  it  may  surprise  some  of  our  readers,  though  I  should 
hope  not  the  greatest  part  of  them,  to  hear  that  I  claim  the 
title  of  works  of  art,  both  for  these  picture-ornamented 
books  as  books,  and  also  for  the  pictures  themselves. 
Their  two  main  merits  are  first  their  decorative  and  next 
their  story-telling  quality;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  these 
two  qualities  include  what  is  necessary  and  essential  in 
book-pictures.  To  be  sure  the  principal  aim  of  these  un- 
known German  artists  was  to  give  the  essence  of  the  story 
at  any  cost,  and  it  may  be  thought  that  the  decorative  quali- 
ties of  their  designs  were  accidental,  or  done  unconsciously 
at  any  rate.  I  do  not  altogether  dispute  that  view ;  but  then 
the  accident  is  that  of  the  skilful  workman  whose  skill  is 
largely  the  result  of  tradition;  it  has  thereby  become  a 
habit  of  the  hand  to  him  to  work  in  a  decorative  manner. 


Notes 
on 

Woodcut 
Books 


Notes  To  turn  back  to  the  books  numbered  above  as  the  most 

on  important  of  the  school,  I  should  call  John  Zainer's  De 

"Woodcut         Claris  Mulieribus,  and  the  ^Esop,  and  Gunther  Zainer's 
Books  Spiegel  des  Menschlichen  lebens  the  most  characteristic. 

Of  these  my  own  choice  would  be  the  De  Claris  Mulieri- 
bus, partly  perhaps  because  it  is  a  very  old  friend  of  mine, 
and  perhaps  the  first  book  that  gave  me  a  clear  insight 
into  the  essential  qualities  of  the  mediaeval  design  of  that 
period.  The  subject-matter  of  the  book  also  makes  it  one 
of  the  most  interesting,  giving  it  opportunity  for  setting 
forth  the  mediaeval  reverence  for  the  classical  period,  with- 
out any  of  the  loss  of  romance  on  the  one  hand,  and  epical 
sincerity  and  directness  on  the  other,  which  the  flood-tide 
of  renaissance  rhetoric  presently  inflicted  on  the  world. 
No  story -telling  could  be  simpler  and  more  straightfor- 
ward, and  less  dependent  on  secondary  help,  than  that  of 
these  curious,  and,  as  people  phrase  it,  rude  cuts.  And  in 
spite  (if  you  please  it)  of  their  rudeness,  they  are  by  no 
means  lacking  in  definite  beauty:  the  composition  is  good 
everywhere,  the  drapery  well  designed,  the  lines  rich, 
which  shows  of  course  that  the  cutting  is  good.  Though 
there  is  no  ornament  save  the  beautiful  initial  S  and  the 
curious  foliated  initials  above  mentioned,  the  page  is  beau- 
tifully proportioned  and  stately,  when,  as  in  the  copy  be- 
fore me,  it  has  escaped  the  fury  of  the  bookbinder. 
The  great  initial's'  I  claim  to  be  one  of  the  very  best  printers' 
ornaments  ever  made,  one  which  would  not  disgrace  a 
thirteenth  century  MS.  Adam  and  Eve  are  standing  on  a 
finely-designed  spray  of  poppy-like  leafage,  and  behind 
them  rise  up  the  boughs  of  the  tree.  Eve  reaches  down 
an  apple  to  Adam  with  her  right  hand,  and  with  her  up- 
lifted left  takes  another  from  the  mouth  of  the  crowned 
woman's  head  of  the  serpent,  whose  coils,  after  they  have 
performed  the  duty  of  making  the  S,  end  in  a  foliage  scroll, 
whose  branches  enclose  little  medallions  of  the  seven  deadly 
sins.  All  this  is  done  with  admirable  invention  and  romantic 
meaning,  and  with  very  great  beauty  of  design  and  a  full 
sense  of  decorative  necessities. 


As  to  faults  in  this  delightful  book,  it  must  be  said  that  it        Notes 
is  somewhat  marred  by  the  press- work  not  being  so  good        on 
as  it  should  have  been  even  when  printed  by  the  weak        Woodcut 
presses  of  the  fifteenth  century;  but  this,  though  a  defect,        Books 
is  not,  I  submit,  an  essential  one. 

In  the  JEsop  the  drawing  of  the  designs  is  in  a  way  supe- 
rior to  that  of  the  last  book:  the  line  leaves  nothing  to  be 
desired;  it  is  thoroughly  decorative,  rather  heavy,  but  so 
firm  and  strong,  and  so  obviously  in  submission  to  the 
draughtman's  hand,  that  it  is  capable  of  even  great  delicacy 
as  well  as  richness.  The  figures  both  of  man  and  beast 
are  full  of  expression;  the  heads  clean  drawn  and  expres- 
sive also,  and  in  many  cases  refined  and  delicate.  The  cuts, 
with  few  exceptions,  are  not  bounded  by  a  border,  but 
amidst  the  great  richness  of  line  no  lack  of  one  is  felt,  and 
the  designs  fully  sustain  their  decorative  position  as  a  part 
of  the  noble  type  of  the  Ulm  and  Augsburg  printers;  this 
JEsop  is,  to  my  mind,  incomparably  the  best  and  most  ex- 
pressive of  the  many  illustrated  editions  of  the  Fables  printed 
in  the  fifteenth  century.  The  designs  of  the  other  German  and 
Flemish  ones  were  all  copied  from  it. 
Gunther  Zainer's  Spiegel  des  Menschlichen  lebens  is  again 
one  of  the  most  amusing  of  woodcut  books.  One  may  say 
that  the  book  itself,  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  runs  through  all  the  conditions  and  occupations  of 
men  as  then  existing,  from  the  Pope  and  Kaiser  down  to 
the  field  labourer,  and,  with  full  indulgence  in  the  mediaeval 
love  of  formal  antithesis,  contrasts  the  good  and  the  evil 
side  of  them.  The  profuse  illustrations  to  all  this  abound 
in  excellent  pieces  of  naive  characterisation ;  the  designs  are 
very  well  put  together,  and,  for  the  most  part,  the  figures 
well  drawn,  and  draperies  good  and  crisp,  and  the  general 
effect  very  satisfactory  as  decoration.  The  designer  in  this 
book,  however,  has  not  been  always  so  lucky  in  his  cutter 
as  those  of  the  last  two,  and  some  of  the  pictures  have  been 
considerably  injured  in  the  cutting.  On  the  other  hand  the 
lovely  genealogical  tree  above  mentioned  crowns  this  book 
with  abundant  honour,  and  the  best  of  the  cuts  are  so  good 

7 


Notes  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  rank  it  after  the  first  two.   Gun- 

on  ther  Zainer 's  Speculum  Humana*  Sal vationis  and  his  Golden 

Woodcut         Legend  have  cuts  decidedly  ruder  than  these  three  books; 
Books  they  are  simpler  also,  and  less  decorative  as  ornaments  to 

the  page,  nevertheless  they  have  abundant  interest,  and 
most  often  their  essential  qualities  of  design  shine  through 
the  rudeness,  which  by  no  means  excludes  even  grace  of 
silhouette:  one  and  all  they  are  thoroughly  expressive  of 
the  story  they  tell.  The  designs  in  these  two  books  by  the 
by  do  not  seem  to  have  been  done  by  the  same  hand;  but 
I  should  think  that  the  designer  of  those  in  the  Golden  Le- 
gend drew  the  subjects  that  'inhabit'  the  fine  letters  of  Gun- 
ther's  German  Bible.  Both  seem  to  me  to  have  a  kind  of 
illuminator's  character  in  them.  The  cuts  to  the  story  of 
Simon  bring  us  back  to  those  of  Spiegel  des  Menschlichen 
lebens;  they  are  delicate  and  pretty,  and  tell  the  story,  half 
so  repulsive,  half  so  touching,  of '  little  Sir  Hugh,'  very  well. 
I  must  not  pass  by  without  a  further  word  on  Sigismund 
and  Guiscard.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  cuts  therein 
are  by  the  same  hand  that  drew  some  of  those  in  the  JEsop ; 
at  any  rate  they  have  the  same  qualities  of  design,  and  are 
to  my  mind  singularly  beautiful  and  interesting. 
Of  the  other  contemporary,  or  nearly  contemporary,  print- 
ers Bamler  comes  first  in  interest.  His  book  von  den  7 
Todsiinden,  etc.,  has  cuts  of  much  interest  and  invention, 
not  unlike  in  character  to  those  of  Gunther  Zainer 's  Golden 
Legend.  His  Buch  der  Natur  has  full-page  cuts  of  animals, 
herbs,  and  human  figures  exceedingly  quaint,  but  very  well 
designed  for  the  most  part.  A  half -figure  of  a  bishop  'in 
pontificalibus'  is  particularly  bold  and  happy.  Rupertus 
a  sancto  Remigio's  History  of  the  crusade  and  the  Cronich 
von  alien  Konigen  und  Kaisern  are  finely  illustrated.  His 
Rosencranz  Bruderschaft  above  mentioned  has  but  two 
cuts,  but  they  are  both  of  them,  the  one  as  a  fine  decora- 
tive work,  the  other  as  a  deeply  felt  illustration  of  devo- 
tional sentiment,  of  the  highest  merit. 
The  two  really  noteworthy  works  of  Sorg  (who,  as  afore- 
said, was  somewhat  a  plagiaristic  publisher)  are,  first,  the 
8 


Seusse,  which  is  illustrated  with  bold  and  highly  decora-         Notes 
tive  cuts  full  of  meaning  and  dignity,  and  next,  the  Council        on 
of  Constance,  which  is  the  first  heraldic  woodcut  work  (it         Woodcut 
has  besides  the  coats-of-arms,  several  fine  full-page  cuts,         Books 
of  which  the  burning  of  Huss  is  one).   These  armorial  cuts, 
which  are  full  of  interest  as  giving  a  vast  number  of  curi- 
ous and  strange  bearings,  are  no  less  so  as  showing  what 
admirable  decoration  can  be  got  out  of  heraldry  when  it  is 
simply  and  well  drawn. 

To  Conrad  Dinckmut  of  Ulm,  belonging  to  a  somewhat  later 
period  than  these  last-named  printers,  belongs  the  glory  of 
opposing  by  his  fine  works  the  coming  degradation  of  book- 
ornament  in  Germany .  The  Seelen-wurzgarten,  ornamented 
with  seventeen  full-page  cuts,  is  injured  by  the  too  free  repe- 
tition of  them;  they  are,  however,  very  good;  the  best  per- 
haps being  the  Nativity,  which,  for  simplicity  and  beauty, 
is  worthy  of  the  earlier  period  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Swabian  Chronicle  has  cuts  of  various  degrees  of  merit, 
but  all  interesting  and  full  of  life  and  spirit:  a  fight  in  the 
lists  with  axes  being  one  of  the  most  remarkable.  Das  buch 
.  der  Weisheit  (Bidpay's  Fables)  has  larger  cuts  which  cer- 
tainly show  no  lack  of  courage;  they  are  perhaps  scarcely 
so  decorative  as  the  average  of  the  cuts  of  the  school,  and 
are  somewhat  coarsely  cut;  but  their  frank  epical  char- 
acter makes  them  worthy  of  all  attention.  But  perhaps  his 
most  remarkable  work  is  his  Terence's  Eunuchus  (in  Ger- 
man), ornamented  with  twenty-eight  cuts  illustrating  the 
scenes.  These  all  have  backgrounds  showing  (mostly)  the 
streets  of  a  mediaeval  town,  which  clearly  imply  theatrical 
scenery;  the  figures  of  the  actors  are  delicately  drawn,  and 
the  character  of  the  persons  and  their  action  is  well  given 
and  carefully  sustained  throughout.  The  text  of  this  book 
is  printed  in  a  large  handsome  black-letter,  imported,  as  my 
friend  Mr.  Proctor  informs  me,  from  Italy.  The  book  is 
altogether  of  singular  beauty  and  character. 
The  Caoursin  (1496),  the  last  book  of  any  account  printed 
at  Ulm,  has  good  and  spirited  cuts  of  the  events  described, 
the  best  of  them  being  the  flight  of  Turks  in  the  mountains. 

9 


Notes  One  is  almost  tempted  to  think  that  these  cuts  are  designed 

on  by  the  author  of  those  of  the  Mainz  Breidenbach  of  1486, 

"Woodcut         though  the  cutting  is  much  inferior. 

Books  All  these  books,  it  must  be  remembered,  though  they  neces- 

sarily ( being  printed  books)  belong  to  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
and  though  some  of  them  are  rather  decidedly  late  in  that 
epoch,  are  thoroughly  'Gothic'  as  to  their  ornament;  there 
is  no  taint  of  the  Renaissance  in  them.  In  this  respect  the 
art  of  book-ornament  was  lucky.  The  neo-classical  rhetoric 
which  invaded  literature  before  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century  (for  even  Chaucer  did  not  quite  escape  it)  was 
harmless  against  this  branch  of  art  at  least  for  more  than 
another  hundred  years;  so  that  even  Italian  book-pictures 
are  Gothic  in  spirit,  for  the  most  part,  right  up  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century,  long  after  the  New  Birth 
had  destroyed  the  building  arts  for  Italy:  while  Germany, 
whose  Gothic  architecture  was  necessarily  firmer  rooted 
in  the  soil,  did  not  so  much  as  feel  the  first  shiver  of  the 
coming  flood  till  suddenly,  and  without  warning,  it  was 
upon  her,  and  the  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  fell  dead  in  a 
space  of  about  five  years,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  singu- 
larly stupid  and  brutal  phase  of  that  rhetorical  and  aca- 
demical art,  which,  in  all  matters  of  ornament,  has  held 
Europe  captive  ever  since. 


10 


EPISTOLA-FRANO/ 


H  OBEDffiNm.Er.FIDEA/XO; 
RIA'GRKELDIS-IN  •  WALIHE 
RVM. 

ilbrum-  tuum  cfuemnoftromatemo  do 
rquio  Art  opinor  olim  iuuenis  ed  idifa»nefdo  quide 
vnde  vd  qualiter  ad  me  ddatuvidi«namfi  dicakgi* 
metiar.Siquidem  tpfemagous  valde*  vcad  maior  • 
5^  tempos  anguftumerac*ldq}ipfumvtnoftivulgus* 
SCfoIuta  fcnptusoratione»2<  occupacio  mca  beuicis 
vndiq?  motibos  inquietu  .  A  quibus  etfi  animo  pro  I 
cut  abfim:neaueo  tamen  fluctuance  re  public*  non 
mourn  •  Quid  ergo*  excucum  eu  •  &  feftini  viatons  iro 
Imorem  •  bine  at  $  bine  circumfp  iciens  •  nee  fubftftens  • 
fanimaduerti  alicubi  •  librurn  ipfum  •  canumdentibusla  - 
ceOltum  *  tuo  tame  baculo  egregie  •  tua^  voce  defeofu 
^Necmtratus  fum  •  nam  et  vires  iogenii  tui  nout  *^C  fcio 
exp  ertus  eflfe  bominum  genus  ^  infoles  &  ignanu*  qui 
^quiequid  ipfi  *vel  nolunt*  vd  ncfci  unt«  v  el  non  polTunt 
in  aliis  repiebendunt  ad  boc  vnum  do  cJh  &  arguti  Sed 
ua  *  ddectar  us  fum«ipfo  in  ttanutu  •  Et 
fiquidbfduieliberioris  occurteret»excufabat  etas  tune 
•  d  urn  id  fcnberes*ftilus  *y  di  oma  •  ipfe  quoq?  rerum 
itas«  ^eoriimquikcflurftalia  videbantur*  Refert 
enim  largiter  quibus  fcnbaS  •  morumc^  varieta  te  •ftili  va 
netas  exeufatur  •  Inteimulla  fane  iocofa  Sc  leuia*  qued  a 
pia  &C  giauia  deprebendi»de  quibus  tn  efifftniti  ue  quid 
iudice  no  babeo»v?  qui  nufcp  totus  ini  eferim.A  t  quod 
accidie  t  eo  more  cuixencibus  curio&usaliquanto  9 


From  John  Zainer's  Griseldis,  Ulm,  1473 


gtaba  reffcarh  ti  pft£auic  bi%  tfginc  m  aria.€jco-flc* 
attb  as  altten  gcfaq  bat  fetnpt  ($>ati 


From  Gunther  Zainer's  Speculum  Humans  Salvationis, 
Augsburg,  C.  1471 


From  Gunther  Zainer's  Ingold,  Das  Golden  Spiel, 
Augsburg,  1472 


JHASUISS/l    JEllVS' 


grcca  mulitr  ab  amiquia  argiuoru 
rcgibus  gcticiofam  taceno  engine  adtafti 
regis  FiUa  fuit/  &  Tpe&abiti  pulcbzitubine 
berecarcmpoianeioUrutn  fpcSacu 

From  John  Zainer's  Boccaccio  de  Claris  Mulieribus, 

Ulm,  1473 


GwangeKum* 


n  illo  ttmpD2C 
sijtit  Jbefus 
cifapuliB  fiiis* 
Si  quis  otltgtt 
me  fcrmoncni 
mcum  feruabit 
cc  pater  meus 
&ihget  c6  et  a& 
cumvenionus* 


fpracb 
56  feincn  iugecn 
fp:acb 


mid)  tieb  bat  »c  tebaltet  man  i3c&wn&  mem  vatec 

From  Gunther  Zainer's  Epistles  and  Gospels, 
Augsburg,  C.  1474 


From  Gunther  Zainer's  Spiegel  D.  Menschl.  Lebens, 
Augsburg,  C.  1475 


JIz  acb  ran  ate  vnD  cr  cm  wcg  natenD  bagm  rate 
tan  tmfcb  ulDigoi  hinD  homen  was/ vn  o  Tub  ailcnt 

From  Gunther  Zainer's  Tuberinus,  Geschicht  von  Dem 
Heiligen  Kind  Symon,  Augsburg,  C.  1475 


From  the 


THE  WOODCUTS  OF  GOTHIC  BOOKS 


Notes  I  shall  presently  have  the  pleasure  of  showing  you  in  some 

on  kind  of  sequence  a  number  of  illustrations  taken  from  books 

Woodcut         of  the  15th,  and  first  years  of  the  16th  centuries.  But  be- 
Books  fore  I  do  so  I  wish  to  read  to  you  a  few  remarks  on  the 

genesis  and  the  quality  of  the  kind  of  art  represented  by 
these  examples,  and  the  lessons  which  they  teach  us. 
Since  the  earliest  of  those  I  have  to  show  is  probably  not 
earlier  in  date  than  about  1420,  and  almost  all  are  more 
than  fifty  years  later  than  that,  it  is  clear  that  they  belong 
to  the  latest  period  of  Mediaeval  art,  and  one  or  two  must 
formally  be  referred  to  the  earliest  days  of  the  Renais- 
sance, though  in  spirit  they  are  still  Gothic.  In  fact,  it  is 
curious  to  note  the  suddenness  of  the  supplanting  of  the 
Gothic  by  the  neo-classical  style  in  some  instances,  espe- 
cially in  Germany:  e.  g.,  the  later  books  published  by  the 
great  Nuremberg  printer,  Koberger,  inthefourteen-nineties, 
books  like  the  "Nuremberg  Chronicle,"  and  the  "Schatzbe- 
halter,"  show  no  sign  of  the  coming  change,  but  ten  years 
worn,  and  hey,  presto,  not  a  particle  of  Gothic  ornament 
can  be  found  in  any  German  printed  book,  though,  as  I 
think,  the  figure-works  of  one  great  man,  Albert  Diirer, 
were  Gothic  in  essence. 

The  most  part  of  these  books,  in  fact  all  of  them  in  the  ear- 
lier days  (the  exceptions  being  mainly  certain  splendidly 
ornamented  French  books,  including  the  sumptuous  books 
of  "  Hours"),  were  meant  for  popular  books :  the  great  theo- 
logical folios,  the  law  books,  the  decretals,  and  such  like  of 
the  earlier  German  printers,  though  miracles  of  typographi- 
cal beauty,  if  ornamented  at  all,  were  ornamented  by  the 
illuminator,  with  the  single  exception  of  Gutenburg's  splen- 
did "Psalter,"  which  gives  us  at  once  the  first  and  best  piece 
of  ornamental  colour  -  printing  yet  achieved.  Again,  the 
dainty  and  perfect  volumes  of  the  classics  produced  by  the 
earlier  Roman  and  Venetian  printers  disdained  the  help 
of  wood  blocks,  though  they  were  often  beautifully  illumi- 
nated, and  it  was  not  till  after  the  days  of  Jenson,  the  French- 
man who  brought  the  Roman  letter  to  perfection,  it  was  not 
till  Italian  typography  began  to  decline,  that  illustration 
1 


by  reproducible  methods  became  usual ;  and  we  know  that        Notes 
these  illustrated  books  were  looked  upon  as  inferior  wares,         on 
and  were  sold  far  cheaper  than  the  unadorned  pages  of         Woodcut 
the  great  printers.    It  must  be  noted  in  confirmation  of  the         Books 
view  that  the  woodcut  books  were  cheap  books,  that  in 
most  cases  they  were  vernacular  editions  of  books  already 
printed  in  Latin. 

The  work,  then,  which  I  am  about  to  show  you  has  first 
the  disadvantage  of  the  rudeness  likely  to  disfigure  cheap 
forms  of  art  in  a  time  that  lacked  the  resource  of  slippery 
plausibility  which  helps  out  cheap  art  at  the  present  day. 
And  secondly,  the  disadvantage  of  belonging  to  the  old  age 
rather  than  the  youth  or  vigorous  manhood  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  art,  and  not  a  mere  trade 
"article;"  and  though  it  was  produced  by  the  dying  Mid- 
dle Ages,  they  were  not  yet  dead  when  it  was  current,  so 
that  it  yet  retains  much  of  the  qualities  of  the  more  hope- 
ful period;  and  in  addition,  the  necessity  of  adapting  the 
current  design  to  a  new  material  and  method  gave  it  a  spe- 
cial life,  which  is  full  of  interest  and  instruction  for  artists 
of  all  times  who  are  able  to  keep  their  eyes  open. 
All  organic  art,  all  art  that  is  genuinely  growing,  opposed 
to  rhetorical,  retrospective,  or  academical  art,  art  which 
has  no  real  growth  in  it,  has  two  qualities  in  common:  the 
epical  and  the  ornamental;  its  two  functions  are  the  tell- 
ing of  a  story  and  the  adornment  of  a  space  or  tangible 
object.  The  labour  and  ingenuity  necessary  for  the  pro- 
duction of  anything  that  claims  our  attention  as  a  work  of 
art  are  wasted,  if  they  are  employed  on  anything  else  than 
these  two  aims.  Mediaeval  art,  the  result  of  a  long  unbro- 
ken series  of  tradition,  is  preeminent  for  its  grasp  of  these 
two  functions,  which,  indeed,  interpenetrate  then  more  than 
in  any  other  period.  Not  only  is  all  its  special  art  obvi- 
ously and  simply  beautiful  as  ornament,  but  its  ornament 
also  is  vivified  with  forcible  meaning,  so  that  neither  in  one 
or  the  other  does  the  life  ever  flag,  or  the  sensuous  pleas- 
ure of  the  eye  ever  lack.  You  have  not  got  to  say,  Now 
you  have  your  story,  how  are  you  going  to  embellish  it? 

2 


Notes  Nor,  Now  you  have  made  your  beauty,  what  are  you  go- 

on ing  to  do  with  it?    For  here  are  the  two  together,  insepar- 

Woodcut         ably  a  part  of  each  other.    No  doubt  the  force  of  tradition, 
Books  which  culminated  in  the  Middle  Ages,  had  much  to  do  with 

this  unity  of  epical  design  and  ornament.  It  supplied  de- 
ficiencies of  individual  by  collective  imagination  (compare 
the  constantly  recurring  phases  and  lines  in  genuine  epical 
or  ballad  poetry) ;  it  ensured  the  inheritance  of  deft  crafts- 
manship and  instinct  for  beauty  in  the  succession  of  the 
generations  of  workmen;  and  it  cultivated  the  appreciation 
of  good  work  by  the  general  public.  Now-a-days  artists 
work  essentially  for  artists,  and  look  on  the  ignorant  lay- 
man with  contempt,  which  even  the  necessity  of  earning 
a  livelihood  cannot  force  them  wholly  to  disguise.  In  the 
times  of  art,  they  had  no  one  but  artists  to  work  for,  since 
every  one  was  a  potential  artist. 

Now,  in  such  a  period,  when  written  literature  was  still 
divine,  and  almost  miraculous  to  men,  it  was  impossible 
that  books  should  fail  to  have  a  due  share  in  the  epical- 
ornamental  art  of  the  time.  Accordingly,  the  opportunities 
offered  by  the  pages  which  contained  the  wisdom  and  know- 
ledge of  past  and  present  times  were  cultivated  to  the  ut- 
most. The  early  Middle  Ages,  beginning  with  the  wonder- 
ful caligraphy  of  the  Irish  MSS.,  were,  above  all  times,  the 
epoch  of  writing.  The  pages  of  almost  all  books,  from  the 
8th  to  the  15th  century,  are  beautiful,  even  without  the  addi- 
tion of  ornament.  In  those  that  are  ornamented  without 
pictures  illustrative  of  the  text,  the  eye  is  so  pleasured,  and 
the  fancy  so  tickled  by  the  beauty  and  exhaustless  cheer- 
ful invention  of  the  illuminator,  that  one  scarcely  ventures 
to  ask  that  the  tale  embodied  in  the  written  characters 
should  be  further  illustrated.  But  when  this  is  done,  and 
the  book  is  full  of  pictures,  which  tell  the  written  tale  again 
with  the  most  conscientious  directness  of  design,  and  as  to 
execution  with  great  purity  of  outline  and  extreme  delicacy 
of  colour,  we  can  say  little  more  than  that  the  only  work 
of  art  which  surpasses  a  complete  Mediaeval  book  is  a  com- 
plete Mediaeval  building.  This  must  be  said,  with  the  least 
3 


qualification,  of  the  books  of  from  about  1160  to  1300. 
After  this  date,  the  work  loses,  in  purity  and  simplicity, 
more  than  it  gains  in  pictorial  qualities,  and,  at  last,  after 
the  middle  of  the  15th  century,  illuminated  books  lose  much 
of  their  individuality  on  the  ornamental  side;  and,  though 
they  are  still  beautiful,  are  mostly  only  redeemed  from 
commonplace  when  the  miniatures  in  them  are  excellent. 
But  here  comes  in  the  new  element,  given  by  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  and  the  gradual  shoving  out  of  the  scribe 
by  the  punch-cutter,  the  typefounder,  and  the  printer.  The 
first  printed  characters  were  as  exact  reproductions  of  the 
written  ones  as  the  new  craftsmen  could  compass,  even  to 
the  extent  of  the  copying  of  the  infernal  abbreviations 
which  had  gradually  crept  into  manuscript;  but,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned,  the  producers  of  serious  books  did  not 
at  first  supply  the  work  of  the  illuminator  by  that  of  the 
woodcutter,  either  in  picture  work  or  ornament.  In  fact, 
the  art  of  printing  pictures  from  wood  blocks  is  earlier 
than  that  of  printing  books,  and  is  undoubtedly  the  parent 
of  book  illustration.  The  first  woodcuts  were  separate  pic- 
tures of  religious  subjects,  circulated  for  the  edification  of 
the  faithful,  in  existing  examples  generally  coloured  by 
hand,  and  certainly  always  intended  to  be  coloured.  The 
earliest  of  these  may  be  as  old  as  1380,  and  there  are  many 
which  have  been  dated  in  the  first  half  of  the  15th  century; 
though  the  dates  are  mostly  rather  a  matter  of  speculation. 
But  the  development  of  book  illustration  proper  by  no 
means  puts  an  end  to  their  production.  Many  were  done 
between  1450  and  1490,  and  some  in  the  first  years  of  the 
16th  century;  but  the  earlier  ones  only  have  any  special 
character  in  them.  Of  these,  some  are  cut  rudely  and  some 
timidly  also,  but  some  are  fairly  well  cut,  and  few  so  ill 
that  the  expression  of  the  design  is  not  retained.  The  de- 
sign of  most  of  these  early  works  is  mostly  admirable,  and 
as  far  removed  from  the  commonplace  as  possible;  many, 
nay  most  of  these  cuts,  are  fine  expressions  of  that  pietism 
of  the  Middle  Ages  which  has  been  somewhat  veiled  from 
us  by  the  strangeness,  and  even  grotesqueness  which  has 

4 


Notes 
on 

Woodcut 
Books 


Notes  mingled  with  it,  but  the  reality  of  which  is  not  doubtful  to 

on  those  who  have  studied  the  period  without  prejudice. 

"Woodcut         Amongst  these  may  be  cited  a  design  of  Christ  being  pressed 

Books  in  the  wine  press,  probably  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  14th 

century,  which  may  stand  without  disadvantage  beside  a 

fine  work  of  the  13th  century. 

The  next  step  towards  book  illustration  brings  us  to  the 
block-books,  in  which  the  picture-cuts  are  accompanied 
by  a  text,  also  cut  on  wood;  the  folios  being  printed  by  rub- 
bing off  on  one  side  only.  The  subject  of  the  origin  of  the 
most  noteworthy  of  these  books,  the  "Ars  Moriendi,"  the 
"Lord's  Prayer,"  the  "Song  of  Solomon,"  the  "Biblia  Pau- 
perum,"  the  "Apocalypse,"  and  the  "Speculum  Humanae 
Salvationis,"  has  been  debated,  along  with  the  question  of 
the  first  printer  by  means  of  movable  types,  with  more 
acrimony  than  it  would  seem  to  need.  I,  not  being  a  learned 
person,  will  not  add  one  word  to  the  controversy;  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  these  works  were  done  somewhere  be- 
tween the  years  1430  and  1460,  and  that  their  style  was 
almost  entirely  dominant  throughout  the  Gothic  period  in 
Flanders  and  Holland,  while  it  had  little  influence  on  the 
German  wood-cutters.  For  the  rest,  all  these  books  have 
great  merit  as  works  of  art;  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
more  direct  or  more  poetical  rendering  of  the  events  given 
than  those  of  the  "  Speculum  Humanae  Salvationis ;"  or  more 
elegant  and  touching  designs  than  those  in  the  "Song  of 
Solomon."  The  cuts  of  the  "Biblia  Pauperum"  are  rougher, 
but  full  of  vigour  and  power  of  expression.  The  "Ars 
Moriendi"  is  very  well  drawn  and  executed,  but  the  subject 
is  not  so  interesting.  The  "Apocalypse"  and  "The  Lord's 
Prayer"  are  both  of  them  excellent,  the  former  being  scarce- 
ly inferior  in  design  to  the  best  of  the  Apocalypse  picture 
MSS.  of  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
We  have  now  come  to  the  wood-cuts  which  ornament  the 
regular  books  of  the  Gothic  period,  which  began  somewhat 
timidly.  The  two  examples  in  Germany  and  Italy,  not  far 
removed  from  each  other  in  date,  being  the  "Historic  von 
Joseph,  Daniel,  Judith,  and  Esther,"  printed  by  Albrecht 
5 


Pfister,  at  Bamberg,  in  1462;  and  the  "Meditations  of  Notes 
Turrecremata  (or  Torquemada),"  printed  at  Rome  by  Ulric  on 
Hahn,intheyear  1467,  whichlatter,  though  taken  by  the  com-  Woodcut 
mand  of  the  Pope  from  the  frescoes  of  a  Roman  Church  (Sta.  Books 
Maria  Sopra  Minerva)  are  as  German  as  need  be,  and  very 
rude  in  drawing  and  execution,  though  not  without  spirit. 
But,  after  this  date,  the  school  of  wood-carving  developed 
rapidly ;  and,  on  the  whole,  Germany,  which  had  been  very 
backward  in  the  art  of  illumination,  now  led  the  new  art. 
The  main  schools  were  those  of  Ulm  and  Augsburg,  of 
Maintz,  of  Strasburg,  of  Basel,  and  of  Nuremberg,  the 
latter  being  the  later.  The  examples  which  I  shall  presently 
have  the  pleasure  of  showing  you  are  wholly  of  the  first 
and  the  last,  as  being  the  most  representative,  Ulm  and 
Augsburg  of  the  earlier  style,  Nuremberg  of  the  later.  But 
I  might  mention,  in  passing,  that  some  of  the  earlier  Basel 
books,  notably  Bernard  Richel's  "Speculum  Humanae  Sal- 
vationis,"  are  very  noteworthy;  and  that,  in  fourteen-eigh- 
ties,  there  was  a  school  at  Maintz  that  produced,  amongst 
other  books,  a  very  beautiful "  Herbal,"  and  Breydenbach's 
"  Peregrinatio,"  which,  amongst  other  merits,  such  as  actual 
representations  of  the  cities  on  the  road  to  the  Holy  Land, 
must  be  said  to  contain  the  best  executed  woodcuts  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Of  course,  there  were  many  other  towns  in 
Germany  which  produced  illustrated  books,  but  they  may 
be  referred  in  character  to  one  or  other  of  these  schools. 
In  Holland  and  Flanders  there  was  a  noble  school  of  wood- 
cutting, delicately  decorative  in  character,  and  very  direct 
and  expressive,  being,  as  I  said,  the  direct  descendant  of 
the  block-books.  The  name  of  the  printer  who  produced 
most  books  of  this  school  was  Gerard  Leeuw  (or  Lion), 
who  printed  first  at  Gouda,  and  afterwards  at  Antwerp. 
But  Colard  Mansion,  of  Bruges,  who  printed  few  books, 
and  was  the  master  of  Caxton  in  the  art  of  printing,  turned 
out  a  few  very  fine  specimens  of  illustrated  books.  One  of 
the  most  remarkable  illustrated  works  published  in  the 
Low  Countries — which  I  mention  for  its  peculiarity — is 
the  "Chevalier  Delibere"  (an  allegorical  poem  on  the  death 

6 


Notes  of  Charles  the  Rash),  and  I  regret  not  being  able  to  show 

on  you  a  slide  of  it,  as  it  could  not  be  done  satisfactorily.  This 

Woodcut         book,  published  at  Schiedam  in  1500,  decidedly  leans  to- 
Books  wards  the  French  in  style,  rather  than  the  native  manner 

deduced  from  the  earlier  block-books. 
France  began  both  printing  and  book  illustration  some- 
what late,  most  of  its  important  illustrated  works  belonging 
to  a  period  between  the  years  1485  and  1520;  but  she 
grasped  the  art  of  book  decoration  with  a  firmness  and  com- 
pleteness very  characteristic  of  French  genius;  and  also, 
she  carried  on  the  Gothic  manner  later  than  any  other  nation. 
For  decorative  qualities,  nothing  can  excel  the  French 
books,  and  many  of  the  picture-cuts,  besides  their  decora- 
tive merits,  have  an  additional  interest  in  the  romantic 
quality  which  they  introduce :  they  all  look  as  if  they  might 
be  illustrations  to  the  "Morte  D'Arthur"  or  Tristram. 
In  Italy,  from  about  1480  onward,  book  illustrations  be- 
came common,  going  hand-in-hand  with  the  degradation 
of  printing,  as  I  said  before.  The  two  great  schools  in 
Italy  are  those  of  Florence  and  Venice.  I  think  it  must  be 
said  that,  on  the  whole,  the  former  city  bore  away  the  bell 
from  Venice,  in  spite  of  the  famous  Aldine  "  Polyphilus," 
the  cuts  in  which,  by  the  way,  are  very  unequal.  There 
are  a  good  many  book  illustrations  published  in  Italy,  I 
should  mention,  like  those  to Ulric  Hahn's  "Meditations  of 
Turrecremata,"  which  are  purely  German  in  style;  which 
is  only  to  be  expected  from  the  fact  of  the  early  printers 
in  Italy  being  mostly  Germans. 

I  am  sorry  to  have  to  say  it,  but  England  cannot  be  said 
to  have  a  school  of  Gothic  book  illustration;  the  cuts  in  our 
early  printed  books  are,  at  the  best,  French  or  Flemish 
blocks  pretty  well  copied.  This  lamentable  fact  is  curious, 
considered  along  with  what  is  also  a  fact:  that  in  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries  the  English  were,  on  the 
whole,  the  best  book  decorators. 

I  have  a  few  words  to  say  yet  on  the  practical  lessons  to 
be  derived  from  the  study  of  these  works  of  art;  but  be- 
fore I  say  them,  I  will  show  you,  by  your  leave,  the  slides 
7 


taken  from  examples  of  these  woodcuts.  Only  I  must  tell 
you  first,  what  doubtless  many  of  you  know,  that  these  old 
blocks  were  not  produced  by  the  graver  on  the  end  sec- 
tion of  a  piece  of  fine-grained  wood  (box  now  invariably), 
but  by  the  knife  on  the  plank  section  of  pear-tree  or  simi- 
lar wood — a  much  more  difficult  feat  when  the  cuts  were 
fine,  as,  e.  g.,  in  Liitzelberger's  marvellous  cuts  of  the 
"Dance  of  Death." 

[Mr.  Morris  then  showed  a  series  of  lantern  slides,  which 
he  described  as  follows:] 

1.  This  is  taken  from  the  "  Ars  Moriendi,"  date  about  1420. 
You  may  call  it  Flemish  or  Dutch,  subject  to  raising  the 
controversy  I  mentioned  just  now. 

2.  The  "Song  of  Solomon,"  about  the  same  date. 

3.  From  the  first  illustrated  book  of  the  Ulm  school.    The 
Renowned  and  Noble  Ladies  of  Boccaccio.    It  begins  with 
Adam  and  Eve.    The  initial  letter  is  very  characteristic  of 
the  Ulm  school  of  ornament.  The  trail  of  the  serpent  forms 
the  S,  and  in  the  knots  of  the  tail  are  little  figures  repre- 
senting the  seven  deadly  sins. 

4.  Another  page  from  the  same  book.  "Ceres  and  the  Art 
of  Agriculture."  One  of  the  great  drawbacks  to  wood  block 
printing  in  those  times  was  the  weakness  of  the  presses. 
Their  only  resource  was  to  print  with  the  paper  very  wet, 
and  with  very  soft  packing,  so  that  the  block  went  well  into 
the  paper;  but  many  books,  and  this  amongst  others,  have 
suffered  much  from  this  cause. 

5.  Another  page  of  the  same  book.    The  date  is  1473. 

6.  This  is  from  an  Augsburg  book.    "Speculum  Humanae 
Vitas,"  written  by  a  Spanish  bishop,  which  was  a  great 
favourite  in  the  Middle  Ages.  It  gives  the  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  all  conditions  of  life.  This  block  contains 
a  genealogical  tree  of  the  Hapsburg  family,  and  is  an  exceed- 
ingly beautiful  piece  of  ornamental  design,  very  well  cut. 

7.  From  the  same  book;  representing  not  the  "Five  Alls," 
with  which  you  are  familiar,  but  the  "  Four  Alls; "  the  gen- 
tleman, the  merchant,  the  nobleman,  and  the  poor  man, 
who  is  the  support  of  the  whole  lot,  with  his  toes  coming 

8 


Notes 
on 

Woodcut 
Books 


Notes  through  his  shoes.    This  is  a  fine  specimen  of  printing  of 

on  Gunther  Zainer.   The  initial  letters  are  very  handsome  in 

Woodcut         all  these  Augsburg  books. 
Books  8.  There  is  a  picture  of  the  Unjust  Lawyer,  from  the  same 

book,  taking  money  from  both  sides.    The  date  of  this 

book  is  about  1475. 

9.  From  "JEsop's  Fables,"  a  reproduction  of  the  "Ulm 
-flLsop,"  by  Antony  Sorg,  of  Augsburg  (but  the  pictures  are 
printed  from  the  same  blocks),  the  "Fly  on  the  Wheel," 
and  the  "Jackdaw  and  Peacock."    These  designs  for  the 
JEsop  pictures  went  all  through  the  Middle  Ages,  with  very 
little  alteration. 

10.  "King  Stork  and  King  Log,"  from  the  same  book. 

11.  This  is  from  the  Table-book  of  Bidpay,  by  Conrad 
Dinckmuth,  who  carried  on  the  early  glories  of  the  Ulm 
school  in  a  later  generation;  about  1486. 

12.  The  Parrot  in  a  Cage,  with  the  ladies  making  a  sham 
storm  to  cause  the  poor  bird  to  be  put  to  death.   Dinckmuth 
did  some  very  remarkable  work:  one  of  the  best  of  which 
was  a  German  translation  of  the  "Eunuchus"  of  Terence; 
another  the  "Chronicle  of  the  Swabians." 

13.  The  "Schatzbehalter,"  published  by  Koburger,  of  Nu- 
remberg, 1491.   Although  so  late,  there  is  no  trace  of  any 
classical  influence  in  the  design.    The  architecture,  for  in- 
stance, is  pure  late  German  architecture. 

14.  From  the  same  book,  "  Joshua  Meeting  the  Angel,"  and 
"Moses  at  the  Burning  Bush." 

15.  A  page,  or  part  of  a  page,  from  the  celebrated  Nurem- 
berg Chronicle,  printed  by  Koburger  in  1493.    This  is,  in 
a  way,  an  exception  to  the  rule  of  illustrated  books  being 
in  the  vernacular,  as  it  is  in  Latin;  but  there  is  also  a 
German  edition. 

16.  Another  specimen  of  the  same  book. 

17.  From  a  curious  devotional  book,  "  Der  Seusse,"  printed 
by  Antony  Sorg,  at  Augsburg,  about  1485. 

18.  Another  page,  which  shows  the  decorative  skill  with 
which  they  managed  their  diagram  pictures. 

19.  An  example  of  the  Flemish  school,  and  characteristic 

9 


of  the  design  of  white  and  black,  which  is  so  often  used  both 
by  the  Florentine  and  the  Flemish  wood-cutters.  It  is  from 
a  life  of  Christ,  published  by  Gerard  Leeuw  in  1487. 

20.  Another  page  from  the  same  book.  There  are  certainly 
two  artists  in  this  book,  and  the  one  on  the  left  appears  to  be 
the  more  pictorial  of  the  two ;  though  his  designs  are  graceful, 
he  is  hardly  as  good  as  the  rougher  book  illustrator.  Gerard 
Leeuw  had  a  very  handsome  set  of  initial  letters,  a  kind  of 
ornament  which  did  not  become  common  until  after  1480. 

21.  Another  one  from  the  same  book. 

22.  From  another  Flemish  book,  showing  how  the  style 
runs  through  them  all.    St.  George  and  the  Dragon;  from 
"A  Golden  Legend,"  1503. 

23.  One  of  French  series,  from  a  very  celebrated  book 
called  "La  Mer  des  Histoires."  It  begins  the  history  of 
France  a  little  before  the  deluge.  It  is  a  most  beautiful  book, 
and  very  large.  One  would  think  these  borders  were  meant 
to  be  painted,  as  so  many  "Books  of  Hours"  were,  but  I 
have  never  seen  a  copy  which  has  had  the  borders  painted, 
though,  as  a  rule,  when  the  borders  are  meant  to  be  painted, 
it  is  not  common  to  find  one  plain. 

24.  Another  page  from  the  same  book;  but  the  slide  does 
not  do  justice  to  it.    I  will  here  mention  that  one  failing  of 
the  French  publishers  was  to  make  one  picture  serve  for 
several  purposes.    The  fact  is,  they  were  more  careful  of 
decoration  than  illustration. 

25.  Another  French  book  by  a  French  printer,  the  "  Aubre 
des  Batailles,"  which  illustrates  that  curious  quality  of  ro- 
mance which  you  find  in  the  French  pictures.    It  is  true 
that  many  of  these  cuts  were  not  made  for  this  book;  in 
fact,  they  were  done  for  another  edition  of  the  Chevalier 
Delibre,  the  Flemish  edition  of  which  I  have  mentioned 
before,  for  some  have  that  name  on  them. 

26.  Another  from  the  same  book. 

27.  Another  good  example  of  the  French  decorative  style. 
It  is  from  Petrarch's  "  Remedy  of  either  Fortune."    This 
is  the  author  presenting  his  book  to  the  king,  and  is  often 
used  in  these  French  books. 

10 


Notes 
on 

Woodcut 
Books 


Notes  28.  From  another  French  book  of  about  the  same  date  (the 

on  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century),  "The  Shepherd's  Cal- 

Woodcut         endar,"  of  which  there  were  a  great  number  of  English 
Books  editions,  even  as  late  as  1656,  the  cuts  being  imitated  from 

these  blocks. 

29.  A  page  from  one  of  the  beautiful  "Books  of  Hours," 
which  were  mostly  printed  on  vellum,  every  page  of  which 
is  decorated  more  or  less  with  this  sort  of  picture.    Here 
is  the  calendar,  with  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the  work  of  the 
months,  the  saints  that  occur  in  it,  and  games  and  sports; 
on  the  other  side  is  the  Sangraal.    This  book  is  through- 
out in  the  same  style  —  wholly  Gothic.    It  was  printed  in 
1498,  and  about  twenty  years  after  these  service-books  be- 
came very  much  damaged  by  having  Renaissance  features 
introduced  from  German  artists  of  the  time. 

30.  Another  page  from  the  same  book.    The  Resurrection, 
and  the  raising  of  Lazarus  are  the  principal  subjects. 

31.  Nominally  an  Italian  woodcut;  the  book  was  printed 
at  Milan,  but  this  cut  is  probably  of  German  design,  if  not 
execution. 

32.  From  a  very  beautiful  book  in  the  Florentine  style.  One 
of  the  peculiarities  is  the  copious  use  of  white  out  of  black. 

33.  Another  from  the  same  — "The  Quatre  reggio,"  1508. 

34.  Another,  very  characteristic  of  the  Florentine  style, 
with  its  beautiful  landscape  background. 

35.  This  is  one  in  which  the  ornament  has  really  got  into 
the  Renaissance  style.    It  is  a  sort  of  "Lucky  Book,"  with 
all  sorts  of  ways  of  finding  your  fortune,  discovering  where 
your  money  has  gone,  who  is  your  enemy,  and  so  on.  One 
of  the  Peschia  books,  actually  printed  at  Milan,  but  of  the 
Venetian  school. 

36.  From  a  book  of  the  Venetian  style,  about  the  same  date. 
I  show  it  as  an  example  of  the  carefulness  and  beauty  with 
which  the  artists  of  the  time  combined  the  border  work 
with  the  pictures.    There  is  something  very  satisfactory  in 
the  proportion  of  black  and  white  in  the  whole  page. 
Now  you  have  seen  my  examples,  I  want  once  more  to 
impress  upon  you  the  fact  that  these  designs,  one  and  all, 

11 


while  they  perform  their  especial  function  —  the  office  of  Notes 
telling  a  tale — never  forget  their  other  function  of  deco-  on 
rating  the  book  of  which  they  form  a  part;  this  is  the  es-  Woodcut 
sential  difference  between  them  and  modern  book  illus-  Books 
trations,  which  I  suppose  make  no  pretence  at  decorating 
the  pages  of  the  book,  but  must  be  looked  upon  as  black 
and  white  pictures  which  it  is  convenient  to  print  and  bind 
up  along  with  the  printed  matter.  The  question,  in  fact, 
which  I  want  to  put  to  you  is  this,  Whether  we  are  to  have 
books  which  are  beautiful  as  books;  books  in  which  type, 
paper,  woodcuts,  and  the  due  arrangement  of  all  these  are 
to  be  considered,  and  which  are  so  treated  as  to  produce 
a  harmonious  whole,  something  which  will  give  a  person 
with  a  sense  of  beauty  real  pleasure  whenever  and  wherever 
the  book  is  opened,  even  before  he  begins  to  look  closely 
into  the  illustrations;  or  whether  the  beautiful  and  inven- 
tive illustrations  are  to  be  looked  on  as  separate  pictures 
imbedded  in  a  piece  of  utilitarianism,  which  they  cannot 
decorate  because  it  cannot  help  them  to  do  so.  Take,  as 
an  example  of  the  latter,  Mr.  Fred.  Walker's  illustrations 
to  "  Philip  "  in  the  "  Cornhill  Magazine,"  of  the  days  when 
some  of  us  were  young,  since  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
they  are  about  the  best  of  such  illustrations.  Now  they  are 
part  of  Thackeray's  story,  and  I  don't  want  them  to  be  in 
any  way  less  a  part  of  it,  but  they  are  in  no  respect  a  part 
of  the  tangible  printed  book,  and  I  do  want  them  to  be  that. 
As  it  is,  the  mass  of  utilitarian  matter  in  which  they  are  im- 
bedded is  absolutely  helpless  and  dead.  Why  it  is  not  even 
ugly  —  at  least  not  vitally  ugly. 

Now  the  reverse  is  the  case  with  the  books  from  which  I 
have  taken  the  examples  which  you  have  been  seeing.  As 
things  to  be  looked  at  they  are  beautiful,  taken  as  a  whole; 
they  are  alive  all  over,  and  not  merely  in  a  corner  here  and 
there.  The  illustrator  has  to  share  the  success  and  the  fail- 
ure, not  only  of  the  wood-cutter,  who  has  translated  his 
drawing,  but  also  of  the  printer  and  the  mere  ornamentalist, 
and  the  result  is  that  you  have  a  book  which  is  a  visible 
work  of  art. 

12 


Notes  You  may  say  that  you  don't  care  for  this  result,  that  you 

on  wish  to  read  literature  and  to  look  at  pictures;  and  that  so 

Woodcut         long  as  the  modern  book  gives  you  these  pleasures  you 

Books  ask  no  more  of  it;  well,  I  can  understand  that,  but  you  must 

pardon  me  if  I  say  that  your  interest  in  books  in  that  case 

is  literary  only,  and  not  artistic,  and  that  implies,  I  think, 

a  partial  crippling  of  the  faculties;  a  misfortune  which  no 

one  should  be  proud  of. 

However,  it  seems  certain  that  there  is  growing  up  a  taste 
for  books  which  are  visible  works  of  art,  and  that  espe- 
cially in  this  country,  where  the  printers,  at  their  best,  do 
now  use  letters  much  superior  in  form  to  those  in  use  else- 
where, and  where  a  great  deal  of  work  intending  to  orna- 
ment books  reasonably  is  turned  out;  most  of  which,  how- 
ever, is  deficient  in  some  respect;  which,  in  fact,  is  seldom 
satisfactory  unless  the  whole  page,  picture,  ornament,  and 
type  is  reproduced  literally  from  the  handiwork  of  the  art- 
ist, as  in  some  of  the  beautiful  works  of  Mr.  "Walter  Crane. 
But  this  is  a  thing  that  can  rarely  be  done,  and  what  we 
want,  it  seems  to  me,  is,  not  that  books  should  sometimes  be 
beautiful,  but  that  they  should  generally  be  beautiful;  in- 
deed, if  they  are  not,  it  increases  the  difficulties  of  those  who 
would  make  them  sometimes  beautiful  immensely.  At  any 
rate,  I  claim  that  illustrated  books  should  always  be  beau- 
tiful, unless,  perhaps,  where  the  illustrations  are  present 
rather  for  the  purpose  of  giving  information  than  for  that 
of  giving  pleasure  to  the  intellect  through  the  eye;  but 
surely,  even  in  this  latter  case,  they  should  be  reasonably 
and  decently  good-looking. 

"Well,  how  is  this  beauty  to  be  obtained?  It  must  be  by  the 
harmonious  cooperation  of  the  craftsmen  and  artists  who 
produce  the  book.  First,  the  paper  should  be  good,  which 
is  a  more  important  point  than  might  be  thought,  and  one 
in  which  there  is  a  most  complete  contrast  between  the 
old  and  the  modern  books;  for  no  bad  paper  was  made  till 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  worst 
that  was  made  even  then  was  far  better  than  what  is  now 
considered  good.  Next,  the  type  must  be  good,  a  matter 
13 


in  which  there  is  more  room  for  excellence  than  those  may        Notes 
think  who  have  not  studied  the  forms  of  letters  closely.         on 
There  are  other  matters,  however,  besides  the  mere  form        Woodcut 
of  the  type  which  are  of  much  importance  in  the  producing        Books 
of  a  beautiful  book,  which,  however,  I  cannot  go  into  to- 
night, as  it  is  a  little  beside  my  present  subject.    Then,  the 
mere  ornament  must  be  good,  and  even  very  good.    I  do 
not  know  anything  more  dispiriting  than  the  mere  plati- 
tudes of  printers'  ornaments — trade  ornaments.    It  is  not 
uncommon  no  w-a-day  s  to  see  handsome  books  quite  spoiled 
by  them — books  in  which  plain,  unadorned  letters  would 
have  been  far  more  ornamental. 

Then  we  come  to  the  picture  woodcuts.  And  here  I  feel 
I  shall  find  many  of  you  differing  from  me  strongly;  for 
I  am  sure  that  such  illustrations  as  those  excellent  black 
and  white  pictures  of  Fred.  Walker  could  never  make  book 
ornaments.  The  artist,  to  produce  these  satisfactorily,  must 
exercise  severe  self-restraint,  and  must  never  lose  sight  of 
the  page  of  the  book  he  is  ornamenting.  That  ought  to  be 
obvious  to  you,  but  I  am  afraid  it  will  not  be.  I  do  not  think 
any  artist  will  ever  make  a  good  book  illustrator,  unless  he 
is  keenly  alive  to  the  value  of  a  well-drawn  line,  crisp  and 
clean,  suggesting  a  simple  and  beautiful  silhouette.  Any- 
thing which  obscures  this,  and  just  to  the  extent  to  which 
it  does  obscure  it,  takes  away  from  the  fitness  of  the  design 
as  a  book  ornament.  In  this  art  vagueness  is  quite  inad- 
missible. It  is  better  to  be  wrong  than  vague  in  making 
designs  which  are  meant  to  be  book  ornaments. 
Again,  as  the  artists'  designs  must  necessarily  be  reproduced 
for  this  purpose,  he  should  never  lose  sight  of  the  material 
he  is  designing  for.  Lack  of  precision  is  fatal  (to  take  up 
again  what  I  have  just  advanced)  in  an  art  produced  by 
the  point  of  the  graver  on  a  material  which  offers  just  the 
amount  of  resistance  which  helps  precision.  And  here  I 
come  to  a  very  important  part  of  my  subject,  to  wit,  the 
relation  between  the  designer  and  the  wood-engraver;  and 
it  is  clear  that  if  these  two  artists  do  not  understand  one 
another,  the  result  must  be  failure;  and  this  understanding 

14 


Notes  can  never  exist  if  the  wood-engraver  has  but  to  cut  ser- 

on  vilely  what  the  artist  draws  carelessly.    If  any  real  school 

Woodcut         of  wood-engraving  is  to  exist  again,  the  wood-cutter  must 
Books  be  an  artist  translating  the  designer's  drawing.    It  is  quite 

pitiable  to  see  the  patience  and  ingenuity  of  such  clever 
workmen,  as  some  modern  wood-cutters  are,  thrown  away 
on  the  literal  reproduction  of  mere  meaningless  scrawls. 
The  want  of  logic  in  artists  who  will  insist  on  such  work  is 
really  appalling.  It  is  the  actual  touches  of  the  hand  that 
give  the  speciality,  the  final  finish  to  a  work  of  art,  which 
carries  out  in  one  material  what  is  designed  in  another; 
and  for  the  designer  to  ignore  the  instrument  and  material 
by  which  the  touches  are  to  be  done,  shows  complete  want 
of  understanding  of  the  scope  of  reproducible  design. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for 
artists  who  consider  designing  a  part  of  their  province  (I 
admit  there  are  very  few  such  artists)  to  learn  the  art  of 
wood-engraving,  which,  up  to  a  certain  point,  is  a  far  from 
difficult  art;  at  any  rate  for  those  who  have  the  kind  of 
eyes  suitable  for  the  work.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  should 
necessarily  always  cut  their  own  designs,  but  that  they 
should  be  able  to  cut  them.  They  would  then  learn  what 
the  real  capacities  of  the  art  are,  and  would,  I  should  hope, 
give  the  executing  artists  genuine  designs  to  execute,  rather 
than  problems  to  solve.  I  do  not  know  if  it  is  necessary  to 
remind  you  that  the  difficulties  in  cutting  a  simple  design 
on  wood  (and  I  repeat  that  all  designs  for  book  illustra- 
tions should  be  simple)  are  very  much  decreased  since  the 
fifteenth  century,  whereas  instead  of  using  the  knife  on  the 
plank  section  of  the  wood,  we  now  use  the  graver  on  the 
end  section.  Perhaps,  indeed,  some  of  you  may  think  this 
simple  wood-cutting  contemptible,  because  of  its  ease;  but 
delicacy  and  refinement  of  execution  are  always  necessary 
in  producing  a  line,  and  this  is  not  easy,  nay  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  those  who  have  not  got  the  due  instinct  for  it;  mere 
mechanical  deftness  is  no  substitute  for  this  instinct. 
Again,  as  it  is  necessary  for  the  designer  to  have  a  feeling 
for  the  quality  of  the  final  execution,  to  sympathise  with 
15 


the  engraver's  difficulties,  and  know  why  one  block  looks  Notes 
artistic  and  another  mechanical;  so  it  is  necessary  for  the  on 
engraver  to  have  some  capacity  for  design,  so  that  he  may  Woodcut 
knowwhatthedesignerwantsofhim,andthathemaybeable 
to  translate  the  designer,  and  give  him  a  genuine  and  obvious 
cut  line  in  place  of  his  pencilled  or  penned  line  without  in- 
juring in  any  way  the  due  expression  of  the  original  design. 
Lastly,  what  I  want  the  artist  —  the  great  man  who  designs 
for  the  humble  executant— to  think  of  is,  not  his  drawn 
design,  which  he  should  look  upon  as  a  thing  to  be  thrown 
away  when  it  has  served  its  purpose,  but  the  finished  and 
duly  printed  ornament  which  is  offered  to  the  public.  I 
find  that  the  executants  of  my  humble  designs  always  speak 
of  them  as  "sketches,"  however  painstaking  they  may  be 
in  execution.  This  is  the  recognised  trade  term,  and  I  quite 
approve  of  it  as  keeping  the  "great  man"  in  his  place,  and 
showing  him  what  his  duty  is,  to  wit,  to  take  infinite  trou- 
ble in  getting  the  finished  work  turned  out  of  hand.  I  lay 
it  down  as  a  general  principle  in  all  the  arts,  where  one  art- 
ist's design  is  carried  out  by  another  in  a  different  material, 
that  doing  the  work  twice  over  is  by  all  means  to  be  avoided 
as  the  source  of  dead  mechanical  work.  The ' '  sketch  "  should 
be  as  slight  as  possible,  i.  e.,  as  much  as  possible  should  be 
left  to  the  executant. 

A  word  or  two  of  recapitulation  as  to  the  practical  side  of 
my  subject,  and  I  have  done.  An  illustrated  book,  where 
the  illustrations  are  more  than  mere  illustrations  of  the 
printed  text,  should  be  a  harmonious  work  of  art.  The 
type,  the  spacing  of  the  type,  the  position  of  the  pages  of 
print  on  the  paper,  should  be  considered  from  the  artistic 
point  of  view.  The  illustrations  should  not  have  a  mere 
accidental  connection  with  the  other  ornament  and  the 
type,  but  an  essential  and  artistic  connection.  They  should 
be  designed  as  a  part  of  the  whole,  so  that  they  would  seem 
obviously  imperfect  without  their  surroundings.  The  de- 
signs must  be  suitable  to  the  material  and  method  of  re- 
production, and  not  offer  to  the  executant  artist  a  mere 
thicket  of  unnatural  difficulties,  producing  no  result  when 

16 


Notes  finished,  save  the  exhibition  of  a  tour  de  force.    The  exe- 

on  cutant,  on  his  side,  whether  he  be  the  original  designer  or 

"Woodcut         someone  else,  must  understand  that  his  business  is  sympa- 
Books  thetic  translation,  and  not  mechanical  reproduction  of  the 

original  drawing.  This  means,  in  other  words,  the  designer 
of  the  picture-blocks,  the  designer  of  the  ornamental  blocks, 
the  wood-engraver,  and  the  printer,  all  of  them  thoughtful, 
painstaking  artists,  and  all  working  in  harmonious  cooper- 
ation for  the  production  of  a  work  of  art.  This  is  the  only 
possible  way  in  which  you  can  get  beautiful  books. 


17 


SOME  NOTES  ON  THE  ILLUMINATED  BOOKS  OF 
THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


Notes  The  Middle  Ages  may  be  called  the  epoch  of  writing  par 

on  excellence.    Stone,  bronze,  wooden  rune-staves,  waxed 

Illuminated     tablets,  papyrus,  could  be  written  upon  with  one  instru- 
Books  ment  or  another;  but  all  these— even  the  last,  tender  and 

brittle  as  it  was — were  but  makeshift  materials  for  writing 
on;  and  it  was  not  until  parchment  and  vellum,  and  at  last 
rag-paper,  became  common,  that  the  true  material  for  writ- 
ing on,  and  the  quill  pen,  the  true  instrument  for  writing 
with,  were  used.  From  that  time  till  the  period  of  the  gen- 
eral use  of  printing  must  be  considered  the  age  of  written 
books.  As  in  other  handicrafts,  so  also  in  this,  the  great 
period  of  genuine  creation  (once  called  the  Dark  Ages  by 
those  who  had  forgotten  the  past,  and  whose  ideal  of  the 
future  was  a  comfortable  prison)  did  all  that  was  worth 
doing  as  an  art,  leaving  makeshifts  to  the  period  of  the  New 
Birth  and  the  intelligence  of  modern  civilisation. 
Byzantium  was  doubtless  the  mother  of  mediaeval  caligra- 
phy,  but  the  art  spread  speedily  through  the  North  of 
Europe  and  flourished  there  at  an  early  period,  and  it  is 
almost  startling  to  find  it  as  we  do  in  full  bloom  in  Ireland 
in  the  seventh  century.  No  mere  writing  has  been  done 
before  or  since  with  such  perfection  as  that  of  the  early 
Irish  ecclesiastical  books;  and  this  caligraphy  is  interest- 
ing also,  as  showing  the  development  of  what  is  now  called 
by  printers  "lower-case"  letter,  from  the  ancient  majuscu- 
lar  characters.  The  writing  is,  I  must  repeat,  positively 
beautiful  in  itself,  thoroughly  ornamental;  but  these  books 
are  mostly  well  equipped  with  actual  ornament,  as  care- 
fully executed  as  the  writing — in  fact,  marvels  of  patient 
and  ingenious  interlacements.  This  ornament,  however, 
has  no  relation  in  any  genuine  Irish  book  to  the  traditional 
style  of  Byzantium,  but  is  rather  a  branch  of  a  great  and 
widespread  school  of  primal  decoration,  which  has  little 
interest  in  the  representation  of  humanity  and  its  doings, 
or,  indeed,  in  any  organic  life,  but  is  contented  with  the 
convolutions  of  abstract  lines,  over  which  it  attains  to  great 
mastery.  The  most  obvious  example  of  this  kind  of  art 
may  be  found  in  the  carvings  of  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand ; 
1 


but  it  is  common  to  many  races  at  a  certain  stage  of  devel-         Notes 
opment    The  colour  of  these  Irish  ornaments  is  not  very        on 
delightful,  and  no  gold  appears  in  them.  [Example:  "  The         Illuminated 
Book  of  Kells,"  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  &c.]  Books 

This  Irish  caligraphy  and  illumination  was  taken  up  by 
the  North  of  England  monks;  and  from  them,  though  in 
less  completeness,  by  the  Carlovingian  makers  of  books 
both  in  France  and  even  in  Germany;  but  they  were  not 
content  with  the  quite  elementary  representation  of  the  hu- 
man form  current  in  the  Irish  illuminations,  and  filled  up 
the  gap  by  imitating  the  Byzantine  picture-books  with  con- 
siderable success  [Examples :  Durham  Gospels,  British  Mu- 
seum, Gospels  at  Boulogne,  &c.],  and  in  time  developed  a 
beautiful  style  of  illumination  combining  ornament  with 
figure-drawing,  and  one  seat  of  which  in  the  early  eleventh 
century  was  "Winchester.  [Example :  Charter  of  foundation 
of  Newminster  at  Winchester,  British  Museum.]  Gold  was 
used  with  some  copiousness  in  these  latter  books,  but  is  not 
seen  in  the  carefully-raised  and  highly-burnished  condi- 
tion which  is  so  characteristic  of  mediaeval  illumination 
at  its  zenith. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  amongst  the  Byzantine  books  of 
the  earlier  period  are  some  which  on  one  side  surpass  in 
mere  sumptuousness  all  books  ever  made;  these  are  writ- 
ten in  gold  and  silver  on  vellum  stained  purple  through- 
out. Later  on  again,  in  the  semi-Byzantine-Anglo-Saxon 
or  Carlovingian  period,  are  left  us  some  specimens  of  books 
written  in  gold  and  silver  on  white  vellum.  This  splendour 
was  at  times  resorted  to  (chiefly  in  Italy)  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  fifteenth  century. 

The  just-mentioned  late  Anglo-Saxon  style  was  the  imme- 
diate forerunner  of  what  may  be  called  the  first  complete 
mediaeval  school,  that  of  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury. Here  the  change  for  the  better  is  prodigious.  Apart 
from  the  actual  pictures  done  for  explanation  of  the  text 
and  the  edification  of  the  "faithful,"  these  books  are  deco- 
rated with  borders,  ornamental  letters,  &c.,  in  which  foliage 
and  forms  human,  animal,  and  monstrous  are  blended  with 

2 


Notes  the  greatest  daring  and  most  complete  mastery.  The  draw- 

on  ing  is  firm  and  precise,  and  it  may  be  said  also  that  an  un- 

Illummated     erring  system  of  beautiful  colour  now  makes  its  appear- 
Books  ance.    This  colour  (as  all  schools  of  decorative  colour  not 

more  or  less  effete)  is  founded  on  the  juxtaposition  of  pure 
red  and  blue  modified  by  delicate  but  clear  and  bright  lines 
and  "pearlings"  of  white,  and  by  the  use  of  a  little  green 
and  spaces  of  pale  pink  and  flesh-colour,  and  here  and  there 
some  negative  greys  and  ivory  yellows.  In  most  cases 
where  the  book  is  at  all  splendid,  gold  is  very  freely  used, 
mostly  in  large  spaces — backgrounds  and  the  like — which, 
having  been  gilded  over  a  solid  ground  with  thick  gold- 
leaf,  are  burnished  till  they  look  like  solid  plates  of  actual 
metal.  The  effect  of  this  is  both  splendid  and  refined,  the 
care  with  which  gold  is  laid  on,  and  its  high  finish,  prevent- 
ing any  impression  of  gaudiness.  The  writing  of  this  pe- 
riod becoming  somewhat  more  definitely  "Gothic,"  does 
not  fall  short  of  (it  could  not  surpass)  that  of  the  previous 
half -century. 

From  this  time  a  very  gradual  change — during  which  we 
have  to  note  somewhat  more  of  delicacy  in  drawing  and 
refinement  of  colour — brings  us  to  the  first  quarter  of  the 
thirteenth  century;  and  here  a  sundering  of  the  styles  of 
the  different  peoples  begins  to  be  obvious.  Throughout  the 
twelfth  century,  though  there  is  a  difference,  it  is  easier  to 
distinguish  an  English  or  French  book  from  a  German  or 
Italian  by  the  writing  than  by  the  illumination;  but  after 
1225  the  first  glance  on  opening  the  book  will  most  often 
cry  out  at  you,  German,  Italian,  or  French-English.  For 
the  rest,  the  illuminations  still  gain  beauty  and  delicacy, 
the  gold  is  even  more  universally  brilliant,  the  colour  still 
more  delicious.  The  sub-art  of  the  rubricator,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  limner  and  the  scribe,  now  becomes  more 
important,  and  remains  so  down  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  Work  of  great  fineness  and  elegance,  drawn  mostly 
with  pen,  and  always  quite  freely,  in  red  and  blue  counter- 
changed,  is  lavished  on  the  smaller  initials  and  other  sub- 
sidiaries of  the  pages,  producing,  with  the  firm  black  writ- 
3 


ing  and  the  ivory  tone  of  the  vellum,  a  beautiful  effect,  even        Notes 
when  the  more  solid  and  elaborate  illumination  is  lacking.         on 
During  this  period,  apart  from  theological  and  philosophi-         Illuminated 
cal  treatises,  herbals,  "bestiaries,"  &c.,  the  book  most  often        Books 
met  with,  especially  when  splendidly  ornamented,  is  the 
Psalter,  as  sung  in  churches,  to  which  is  generally  added 
a  calendar,  and  always  a  litany  of  the  saints.  This  calendar, 
by  the  way,  both  in  this  and  succeeding  centuries,  is  often 
exceedingly  interesting,  from  the  representations  given  in 
it  of  domestic  occupations.  The  great  initial  B  (Beatus  vir 
qui  non)  of  these  books  affords  an  opportunity  to  the  il- 
luminator, seldom  missed,  of  putting  forth  to  the  full  his 
powers  of  design  and  colour. 

The  last  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century  brings  us  to  the 
climax  of  illumination  considered  apart  from  book-pictures. 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  grace,  elegance,  and  beauty  of  the 
drawing  and  the  loveliness  of  the  colour  found  at  this  period 
in  the  best-executed  books;  and  it  must  be  added  that, 
though  some  work  is  rougher  than  other,  at  this  time  there 
would  appear,  judging  from  existing  examples,  to  have 
been  no  bad  work  done.  The  tradition  of  the  epoch  is  all- 
embracing  and  all-powerful,  and  yet  no  single  volume  is 
without  a  genuine  individuality  and  life  of  its  own.  In  short 
if  all  the  other  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  disappeared, 
they  might  still  claim  to  be  considered  a  great  period  of  art 
on  the  strength  of  their  ornamental  books. 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  we  note  a  com- 
plete differentiation  between  the  work  of  the  countries  of 
Europe.  There  are  now  three  great  schools:  the  French- 
Flemish-English,  the  Italian,  and  the  German.  Of  these  the 
first  is  of  the  most,  the  last  of  the  least,  importance.  As  to 
the  relations  between  England  and  France,  it  must  be  said 
that,  though  there  is  a  difference  between  them,  it  is  some- 
what subtle,  and  may  be  put  thus:  of  some  books  you  may 
say,  This  is  French;  of  others,  This  is  English;  but  of  the 
greater  part  you  can  say  nothing  more  than,  This  belongs 
to  the  French-English  school.  Of  those  that  can  be  differ- 
entiated with  something  like  certainty,  it  may  be  said  that 

4 


Notes  the  French  excel  specially  in  a  dainty  and  orderly  elegance, 

on  the  English  specially  in  love  of  life  and  nature,  and  there  is 

Illuminated  more  of  rude  humour  in  them  than  in  their  French  con- 
Books  temporaries;  but  he  must  be  at  once  a  fastidious  and  an 
absolute  man  who  could  say  the  French  is  better  than  the 
English  or  the  English  than  the  French. 
The  Norwich  Psalter,  in  the  Bodleian  Library ;  the  Arundel, 
Queen  Mary's,  and  Tennison  Psalters,  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum, are  among  the  finest  of  these  English  books:  noth- 
ing can  surpass  their  fertility  of  invention,  splendour  of 
execution,  and  beauty  of  colour. 

This  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  went  on  producing  splen- 
did psalters  at  a  great  rate;  but  between  1260  and  1300  or 
1320  the  greatest  industry  of  the  scribe  was  exercised  in 
the  writing  of  Bibles,  especially  pocket  volumes.  These 
last,  it  is  clear,  were  produced  in  enormous  quantities,  for 
in  spite  of  the  ravages  of  time  many  thousands  of  them  still 
exist.  They  are,  one  and  all,  beautifully  written  in  hands 
necessarily  very  minute,  and  mostly  very  prettily  illumi- 
nated with  tiny  figure-subjects  in  the  initials  of  each  book. 
For  a  short  period  at  the  end  of  this  and  the  beginning  of 
the  next  century  many  copies  of  the  Apocalypse  were  pro- 
duced, illustrated  copiously  with  pictures,  which  give  us 
examples  of  serious  Gothic  designs  at  its  best,  and  seem  to 
show  us  what  wall-pictures  of  the  period  might  have  been 
in  the  North  of  Europe. 

The  fourteenth  century,  the  great  mother  of  change,  was  as 
busy  in  making  ornamental  books  as  in  other  artistic  work. 
"When  we  are  once  fairly  in  the  century  a  great  change  is  ap- 
parent again  in  the  style.  It  is  not  quite  true  to  say  that  it  is 
more  redundant  than  its  predecessor,  but  it  has  more  me- 
chanical redundancy.  The  backgrounds  to  the  pictures  are 
more  elaborated;  sometimes  diapered  blue  and  red,  some- 
times gold  most  beautifully  chased  with  dots  and  lines. 
The  borders  cover  the  page  more;  buds  turn  into  open 
leaves;  often  abundance  of  birds  and  animals  appear  in  the 
borders,  naturalistically  treated  (and  very  well  drawn); 
there  is  more  freedom,  and  yet  less  individuality  in  this 
5 


work;  in  short  the  style,  though  it  has  lost  nothing  (in  its  Notes 
best  works)  of  elegance  and  daintiness — qualities  so  desir-  on 
able  in  an  ornamental  book — has  lost  somewhat  of  manli-  Illuminated 
ness  and  precision ;  and  this  goes  on  increasing  till,  towards  Books 
the  end  of  the  century,  we  feel  that  we  have  before  us  work 
that  is  in  peril  of  an  essential  change  for  the  worse.  [In 
France  "Bibles  Historiaux,"  i.  e.,  partial  translations  of  the 
Bible,  very  copiously  pictured,  were  one  of  the  most  note- 
worthy productions  of  the  latter  half  of  the  century.  The 
Bible  taken  in  the  tent  of  the  French  King  at  the  battle 
of  Poitiers,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  is  a  fine  example.] 
The  differentiation,  too,  betwixt  the  countries  increases; 
before  the  century  is  quite  over,  England  falls  back  in  the 
race  [though  we  have  in  the  British  Museum  some  mag- 
nificent examples  of  English  illumination  of  the  end  of  the 
fourteenth  and  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  centuries,  e.  g., 
"The  Salisbury  Book;"  a  huge  Bible  (Harl.  i.,  e.  ix.)  orna- 
mented in  a  style  very  peculiarly  English.  The  Wyclifite 
translation  of  the  Bible  at  the  Museum  is  a  good  specimen 
of  this  style],  and  French-Flanders  and  Burgundy  come 
forward,  while  Italy  has  her  face  turned  toward  Renais- 
sance, and  Germany  too  often  shows  a  tendency  toward 
coarseness  and  incompleteness,  which  had  to  be  redeemed 
in  the  long  last  by  the  honesty  of  invention  and  fitness  of 
purpose  of  her  woodcut  ornaments  to  books.  Many  most 
beautiful  books,  however,  were  turned  out,  not  only  through- 
out the  fourteenth,  but  even  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  ["The  Hours  of  the  Duke  of  Berry"  (Biblio- 
theque  Nationale,  Paris),  and  the  "Bedford  Hours,"  in  the 
British  Museum,  both  French,  are  exceedingly  splendid 
examples  of  this  period.] 

The  first  harbinger  of  the  great  change  that  was  to  come 
over  the  making  of  books  I  take  to  be  the  production  in 
Italy  of  most  beautifully-written  copies  of  the  Latin  classics. 
These  are  often  very  highly  ornamented;  and  at  first  not 
only  do  they  imitate  (very  naturally)  the  severe  hands  of 
the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  but  even  (though  a  long 
way  off)  the  interlacing  ornament  of  that  period.  In  these 

6 


Notes  books  the  writing,  it  must  be  said,  is  in  its  kind  far  more 

on  beautiful  than  the  ornament.  There  were  so  many  written 

Illuminated     and  pictured  books  produced  in  the  fifteenth  century  that 
Books  space  quite  fails  me  to  write  of  them  as  their  great  merits  de- 

serve. In  the  middle  of  the  century  an  invention,  in  itself  tri- 
fling, was  forced  upon  Europe  by  the  growing  demand  for 
more  and  cheaper  books.  Gutenberg  somehow  got  hold  of 
punches,  matrices,  the  adjustable  mould,  and  so  of  cast  mov- 
able type;  Schoeffer,  Mentelin,  and  the  rest  of  them  caught 
up  the  art  with  the  energy  and  skill  so  characteristic  of  the 
mediaeval  craftsman.  The  new  German  art  spread  like  wild- 
fire into  every  country  of  Europe;  and  in  a  few  years  writ- 
ten books  had  become  mere  toys  for  the  immensely  rich. 
Yet  the  scribe,  the  rubricator,  and  the  illuminator  died  hard. 
Decorated  written  books  were  produced  in  great  numbers 
after  printing  had  become  common ;  by  far  the  greater  num- 
ber of  these  were  Books  of  Hours,  very  highly  ornamented 
and  much  pictured.  Their  style  is  as  definite  as  any  of  the 
former  ones,  but  it  has  now  gone  off  the  road  of  logical  con- 
sistency; for  divorce  has  taken  place  between  the  picture- 
work  and  the  ornament.  Often  the  pictures  are  exquisitely- 
finished  miniatures  belonging  to  the  best  schools  of  paint- 
ing of  the  day;  but  often  also  they  are  clearly  the  work  of 
men  employed  to  fill  up  a  space,  and  having  no  interest  in 
their  work  save  livelihood.  The  ornament  never  fell  quite 
so  low  as  that,  though  as  ornament  it  is  not  very  "distin- 
guished," and  often,  especially  in  the  latest  books,  scarcely 
adds  to  the  effect  on  the  page  of  the  miniature  to  which 
it  is  a  subsidiary. 

But  besides  these  late- written  books,  in  the  first  years  of 
printing,  the  rubricator  was  generally,  and  the  illumina- 
tor not  seldom,  employed  on  printed  books  themselves. 
In  the  early  days  of  printing  the  big  initials  were  almost 
always  left  for  the  rubricator  to  paint  in  in  red  and  blue, 
and  were  often  decorated  with  pretty  scroll-work  by  him ; 
and  sometimes  one  or  more  pages  of  the  book  were  sur- 
rounded with  ornament  in  gold  and  colours,  and  the  ini- 
tials elaborately  finished  in  the  same  way. 
7 


The  most  complete  examples  of  this  latter  work  subsidiary         Notes 
to  the  printed  page  are  found  in  early  books  printed  in  Italy,         on 
especially  in  the  splendid  editions  of  the  classics  which  came         Illuminated 
from  the  presses  of  the  Roman  and  Venetian  printers.  Books 

By  about  1530  all  book  illumination  of  any  value  was  over, 
and  thus  disappeared  an  art  which  may  be  called  peculiar 
to  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  commonly  shows  mediaeval 
craftsmanship  at  its  best,  partly  because  of  the  excellence 
of  the  work  itself,  and  partly  because  that  work  can  only 
suffer  from  destruction  and  defacement,  and  cannot,  like 
mediaeval  buildings,  be  subjected  to  the  crueller  ravages 
of  "restoration." 


8 


HERE  END  THE  NOTES  ON  EARLY  WOOD-CUT 
BOOKS  BY  WILLIAM  MORRIS.  OF  THIS  BOOK 
THERE  HAVE  BEEN  PRINTED  ONE  HUNDRED 
AND  TWENTY  COPIES  BY  CLARKE  CONWELL 
AT  THE  ELSTON  PRESS:  FINISHED  THIS  TWEN- 
TIETH DAY  OF  FEBRUARY,  MDCCCCII.  SOLD 
BY  CLARKE  CONWELL  AT  THE  ELSTON  PRESS, 
PELHAM  ROAD,  NEW  ROCHELLE,  NEW  YORK 


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